Install Portable Antivirus on a USB Flash Drive or an iPod

clamwin_portable

What will happen if your System is infected with viruses and the Antivirus you had installed failed to protect? In several cases, the virus may also disable any anti virus programs that you may try to run to disinfect.

Can we use a portable anti virus program which is installed in a USB Flash drive to scan our computer? The answer is a definite Yes! This is an easy way to disinfect an infected computer using a USB disk or your iPod.

ClamWin has come up with such an anti virus application. ClamWin Portable is a popular ClamWin antivirus packaged as a portable app, so you can take your antivirus with you to scan files on the go. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.

See the details below to install the free anti-virus in your portable USB device.

Requirements:

Windows XP, Vista or 7 Operating System

USB Flash Drive, Disk with Minimum 30MB free space

Step 1: Download ClamWin Portable from the link below:

Size: 6MB

Link: Click here to Download ClamWin Portable 0.95.3

Step 2: Connect your USB device. Then go to the downloaded file. Double click on the exe file.

Step 3: Start the installation process. Select the correct location where the application is to be installed. Then click on Install.

choose_location_clamwin]

Step 4: Now after successfully installing the application, go to the location where you have installed it. Double click on ClamWinPortable.exe to start the application.

start_clamwinportable

Step 5: On first startup it will ask you to download the Virus Definition database. Click on yes.

download_virus_definition_database

Step 6: Now it will download the update. It may take a few minutes. Note that without downloading the database update the anti-virus is useless.

Downloading_update

Step 7: Now you can select the drive to scan.

ClamWin_free_antivirus

Now you can easily disinfect any computer. But make sure that the virus definition database is up to date.

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Download

Microsoft .Net logo

Microsoft has released .NET Framework 4 last week along with Visual Studio 2010.The latest version of the .NET Framework is now available both as a Web installer as well as a stand alone installer.If you have been following our blog off late, you must have read our post about how to find the version of the .NET Framework installed in your windows.The newer applications that require Microsoft .NET Framework 4 will automatically trigger a download of the component, if it’s not been already installed on the user’s computer.

.NET Framework consists of the core framework that goes behind all the modern windows based applications.The .NET Framework model’s downward compatibility lets it to work along side with older versions of the .NET Framework.The newer version introduces many features besides improving the performance.

.NET Framework 4 Features:

Net Framework 4 poster

.NET poster via Brad Abrams

  • Improvements in Common Language Runtime (CLR) and Base Class Library (BCL)
  • Innovations in the Visual Basic and C# languages
  • Improvements in Data Access and Modeling
  • Improvements in performance and scalability
  • significant enhancements to ASP.NET that provides more control over HTML, element IDs and custom CSS
  • Improvements in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
  • New added support for Windows 7 multi-touch, ribbon controls & taskbar extensibility features.
  • Improvements to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) (Ex: support for WCF Workflow Services)
  • Innovative new parallel-programming features (Ex:parallel loop support, Task Parallel Library (TPL), Parallel LINQ (PLINQ) etc.,)

Complete list of new features/changes is available at this page.

Download .NET Framework 4 :

Link 1: Standalone Installer

Link 2: Web Installer

Requirements : Windows XP SP3 /Windows Vista SP1 or later versions (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions)

How to Create a Password Reset USB Disk in Windows 7 And Vista

Have you ever faced a problem of forgotten password in your Windows PC? If yes better have a backup plan now itself. Here we are going to tell you, how you can reset your Windows password using a reset password disk. This feature is available in Windows 7 and Vista only.

You can backup your user identity in a USB disk and use the disk for resetting your Windows user password in the future in case you have forgotten it. For this purpose you need not use a high capacity USB drive. You can either use your old USB which are considered obsolete or too small in size like 128MB or buy a small capacity one at lower cost. This is because the reset file if very small and you need to store the USB device in your locker or any other safer place.

Requirements:

A USB Flash Drive(Any size)

Windows 7 or Vista Operating System

Important: Once a password reset disk has been created, no matter how many times the password has been changed after that, you can reset the password using the Disk any number of times. In order to avoid misuse of the device, keep it in a safe place.

Password Forgotten Before Creating the Password Reset Disk?

Follow this link: Reset Windows XP, Vista, 7 Password Using USB Drive or CD

Follow the steps to create a Password Reset disk using Windows Forgotten Password Wizard:

Step 1: Connect the USB Flash Drive to your PC.

Step 2: Open Start Menu, click on Control Panel. In Control Panel go to:

Control Panel—>User Accounts and Family Safety—>User Accounts

Step 3: In the left pane of User Accounts, click on Create a password reset disk.

User_accounts

Step 4: Now in the Forgotten Password Wizard, read the Important notes and warnings and Click on next.

forgotten_password_wizard

Step 5: It will ask you for the USB drive letter in which you want to store the password reset file. Select the correct drive and click on Next.

select_drive_forgotten_password_disk

Step 6: Now it will ask for the current password. Enter the correct password and click next.

enter_current_password

Step 7: Once it completes the creation process, click on finish.

create_password_reset_disk

What you have to do when you have forgotten your password?

Now if you have forgotten the password, you can use the Reset disk. When Windows asks you for the login password, plug in your Password Reset Disk and wait for a while. Try entering any wrong password. Now below the password field, a link as Reset Password… will come up. Click on it and enter a new password.

Note: If you do not have a Password Reset Disk, you can try: Reset Windows XP, Vista, 7 Password Using USB Drive or CD

Firefox 3.6.4 Beta Released

Firefox surprised every one last week by announcing launching out-of-process feature for plugins (via Firefox 3.6 Lorentz) that let the users to run the plugins in a separate process rather than in native browser process.What it means is that if a plugin crashes, it will not affect the rest of the browser as you can fix it either by reloading the page that restarts the plugin process.

And now Mozilla team has a taken a step further to add this feature in their latest release Firefox 3.6.4 Beta.Apart from this main feature, Firefox 3.6.4 also addresses other security issues.

firefox 364 beta download

Firefox 3.6.4 provides uninterrupted browsing for Windows and Linux users when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.

Download Firefox 3.6.4 Beta

Direct download link (Windows – 8.2 MB – via Mozilla FTP) Update: Link expired.

P.S: Firefox 3.6.4 version is coming on May 4, 2010.Untill then, grab this beta version.

Speed Up Your PC Using a USB flash Drive in Windows 7 and Vista With ReadyBoost

If you have a low memory in your Windows 7 PC, your system may be slow and the performance may not be satisfactory. Microsoft Windows has introduces a new component known as ReadyBoost, to help when your PC’s memory is running low.

ReadyBoost is a component of Microsoft Windows, first introduced with Microsoft’s Windows Vista in 2006 and bundled with Windows 7 in 2009. It works by using flash memory, a USB flash drive, SD card, CompactFlash, external hard drive or any kind of portable flash mass storage system as a drive for disk cache.
ReadyBoost is also used to facilitate SuperFetch, which allows it to perform analysis of boot-time disk usage patterns and creates a cache which is used in subsequent system boots. SuperFetch is a technology that pre-loads commonly used applications into memory to reduce their load times, in a similar fashion to the preload in Linux.

Using ReadyBoost-capable flash memory (NAND memory devices) for caching allows Windows 7 and Vista to service random disk reads with performance that is typically 80-100 times faster than random reads from traditional hard drives.

Using ReadyBoost in Windows 7 and Vista:

First plug in your USB flash drive. Open My Computer. You can see the Removable Disk. Right Click on it and Select Properties.

removable_disk_properties

Now in the Properties window, go to ReadyBoost Tab. You can either select Dedicate this device to ReadyBoost or Use this device and set the amount of space you want to use for the process.

ReadyBoost

Now Windows will use the free space available in your flash drive for speeding up your computer.

Note that this process will not delete any data from your flash drive. It will only use the available free space in the removable disk.

Moreover if you want to speed up your boot up and startup, you need to use MSConfig.

Speed Dial For Google Chrome [Extension]

Speed Dial is a browser feature that was first introduced in Opera to quickly access your favorite websites.Later the same feature was extended to the other browsers thanks to the numerous extensions that made this possible.Here we are talking about an extension called Speed Dial for Chrome that lets you to add Speed dial feature to Google Chrome.With this you can replace Google Chrome’s default new tab page with colorful speed dial.

Once installed, the extension can be customized by adding your favorite websites but even if you configure them, it’ll set some default speed dial websites based on your browsing history.You can also customize the background color/image, search options etc., from the options menu.

You can also add any page that you are currently viewing to the speed dial by just clicking the speed dial icon that appears on the extreme right in the address bar.

speed dial chrome install

Speed dial chrome iconspeed dial chrome  thumbnails

speed_dial_chrome_customization

Google’s New Launches: Google Follow Finder & Twitter Replay

Google is clearly showing its love for Twitter nowadays.Yesterday (April 14, 2010) Google has made 2 announcements both relating to twitter related features launch in Google.

The first one which was announced earlier was called Google’s Twitter replay that lest you search.Twitter replay will allow you to recall what had happened on anyway in the past courtesy the twitter tweets.To use this feature, click on the “Show Options” when you search for anything in Google.Then choose “Updates” from the sidebar menu.You can see a horizontal graphic chart which represents the volume of the tweets tweeted within a particular period of time, you can always go back to the history by using the backward arrow link just below the chart.You can click on any date/period to see the tweets about that topic in the given period.To see how it actually works, follow this link.

google_twitter_replay

Google Follow Finder:

Google Follow Finder is yet another Twitter related feature that was announced by Google yesterday.Follow finder analyzes public social graph information on twitter to find people that you might want to follow on Twitter.To use this feature, enter Google Follow Finder site and enter your Twitter user name and search for Tweeps.

Google follow finder

Don’t forget to follow Techrena Dot Net at Twitter.

Nokia N86 Firmware Update V30.009 Available

Nokia official logo

The Nokia N86 has got a firmware update today the new upgraded firmware version being V30.009.The new firmware versions features the latest Ovi Maps client.

The new update (143 MB) is now only available (to PC) via Nokia Software Updater but soon it will be available via Over-The-Air (OTA) update service too.The screenshot posted below has been uploaded by a Nokia N86 user who spotted the update.

n86 v30.009

The new version 30.009 includes:

Latest Ovi Maps 3.3

Location sharing via Facebook

Improvements in Nokia messaging

Related:

Nokia N900 Firmware update V3.2010.02-08

If you are a Nokia freak, also read about Nokia’s 3 new mobiles phones announced yesterday : Nokia C6, Nokia C3 & Nokia E5

Nokia E5 Cheapest 3G QWERTY Business Device : Specs, Pics & Price Details

Nokia logo

Nokia E5 Review:

Following the success of hugely popular business phone Nokia E63 and E72, here comes another Nokia E series phone, which would probably the cheapest QWERTY device with a 5 Mega pixel camera, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, direct access to multiple mail accounts (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, Ovi Mail, Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus NotesTraveler Business), and lots more interesting features that make it a worth buy model at a very affordable price.Talk time of up to 18 hours and standby time of 29 days (up to) are amazing for a device at such a price.

Check out Nokia E5 official pictures and full technical specifications

Pictures:

nokia e5

nokia e5 sideview

Nokia E5 Full Specifications :

Dimensions 115 mm x 58.9 mm x 12.8 mm
Display 2.4” QVGA LCD (320×240)with 256k  colors
Screen Resolution 320 x 240 Pixels
Weight 126 g (including battery)
Operating System Symbian OS v9.3
S60 3rdEdition, Feature Pack 2
Network GSM 850/900/1800/1900
WCDMA Band I + II + VIII (900+1900+2100)
WCDMA Band I + II + V (850+1900+2100)
Memory Internal memory: Up to 250 MB
Memory card: up to 32 GB microSD
Talk time Up to 18h 30 min (GSM), 5h 30 min (3G)
Standby time Up to 29 days
Connectivity •HSDPA cat9 (10.2Mbps), HSUPA cat5 (2Mbps)
•Tri-band WCDMA
•GSM GPRS data class 32, GSM EGPRS data class 32, DTM32
•Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP & AVRCP)
•WLAN (Wi-Fi 802.11b/g)
•Integrated A-GPS (with OVI maps)
•Micro-USB connector
•3.5 mm Nokia AV connector
Camera 5 Megapixel Camera with LED Flash, 4 x Digital Zoom
Video Playback formats 3GPP formats (H.263), Flash Video, H.264/AVC, MPEG-4, RealVideo 7,8,9/10, WMV
Email Supports: Ovi Mail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes Traveler
Battery BL-4D 3.7V 1200mAh
Music Playback Time Up to 38 hours
Available Colors Carbon Black, Chalk White, Sky Blue, Copper Brown, Silver Grey

Price:

The Nokia E5 prices are set as

UK – €180

India – Rs. 10,800 INR

Availability:

Nokia E5 would be available from early Q3 2010.

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool KB890830

microsoft logo

Microsoft updates its Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal tool (MWMSRT) and releases the update on the second Tuesday of every month.As usual, Microsoft released updated version of this tool for the month of April (2010) as KB890830.This tool checks your computer for any malicious software and helps to remove it, once it finds the infection.Please make note of the difference between an anti-virus program and thus Malicious Software Removal Tool.

This Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool is no replacement to an anti-virus program.An anti-virus program blocks malicious software from running on a computer, whereas this tool only removes malicious software from a computer which is already infected.As they say “Prevention is always better than the cure”, it applies here too ! It’s always desirable to block such malicious software from running on the computer first up,

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool – April 2010 (KB890830)

Update Released on : April 13, 2010

Update type: Important

Download Size: 9.9 MB

Platforms: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000

Download:

Download the 890830 package now

Download link for x74 version of the software

More information:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=39987

Previous updates : KB977206, KB980182, kb978601